Part 27 (1/2)

And I reflected that the best men at New Scotland Yard had failed to pick up the slightest clue!

”The Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+n, of whom that dreadful man is leader, are rich, or have supporters who are rich. The plan was to make them pay for the slipper.”

”My G.o.d! it was playing with fire!”

She sat silent awhile. Emotion threatened to get the upper hand.

Then--

”Two days ago,” she almost whispered, ”he set out--to ... get the slipper!”

”To steal it?”

”To steal it!”

”From Ha.s.san of Aleppo?”

I could scarcely believe that any man, single-handed, could have had the hardihood to attempt such a thing.

”From Ha.s.san, yes!”

I faced her, amazed, incredulous.

”Dexter had suffered mutilation, he knew that the Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+n sought his life for his previous attempts upon the relic of the Prophet, and yet he dared to venture again into the very lions' den?”

”He did, Mr. Cavanagh, two days ago. And--”

”Yes?” I urged, as gently as I could, for she was shaking pitifully.

”He never came back!”

The words were spoken almost in a whisper. She clenched her hands and leapt from the chair, fighting down her grief and with such a stark horror in her beautiful eyes that from my very soul I longed to be able to help her.

”Mr. Cavanagh” (she had courage, this bewildering accomplice of a cracksman), ”I know the house he went to! I cannot hope to make you understand what I have suffered since then. A thousand times I have been on the point of going to the police, confessing all I knew, and leading them to that house! O G.o.d! if only he is alive, this shall be his last crooked deal--and mine! I dared not go to the police, for his sake! I waited, and watched, and hoped, through two such nights and days ... then I ventured. I should have gone mad if I had not come here. I knew you had good cause to hate, to detest me, but I remembered that you had a great grievance against Ha.s.san. Not as great, O heaven! not as great as mine, but yet a great one. I remembered, too, that you were the kind of man--a woman can come to...”

She sank back into the chair, and with her fingers twining and untwining, sat looking dully before her.

”In brief,” I said, ”what do you propose?”

”I propose that we endeavour to obtain admittance to the house of Ha.s.san of Aleppo--secretly, of course, and all I ask of you in return for revealing the secret of its situation is--”

”That I let Dexter go free?”

Almost inaudibly she whispered: ”If he lives!”

Surely no stranger proposition ever had been submitted to a law-abiding citizen. I was asked to connive in the escape of a notorious criminal, and at one and the same time to embark upon an expedition patently burglarious! As though this were not enough, I was invited to beard Ha.s.san of Aleppo, the most dreadful being I had ever encountered East or West, in his mysterious stronghold!

I wondered what my friend, Inspector Bristol, would have thought of the project; I wondered if I should ever live to see Ha.s.san meet his just deserts as a result of this enterprise, which I was forced to admit a foolhardy one. But a man who has selected the career of a war correspondent from amongst those which Fleet Street offers, is the victim of a certain craving for fresh experiences; I suppose, has in his character something of an adventurous turn.

For a while I stood staring from the window, then faced about and looked into the violet eyes of my visitor.